1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to bill presentment and payment methods and systems. More particularly, this invention relates to computerized methods and systems for presenting and paying bills. The methods and systems are implemented in computer hardware and software.
2. Background Information
For many years consumers have paid bills by writing personal checks. Billing parties commonly print and mail paper bills to consumers, and consumers respond by writing and mailing payment checks back to the billing parties. Numerous cost and efficiency problems result from this traditional method for paying bills. The billing parties incur the costs of printing and sending out many bills and receiving and processing many checks. These costs include postage, printing expenses, other overhead costs associated with preparing bill mailings to send via the post office, and the costs of handling many check payments received in mail envelopes. Consumers, similarly, incur postage costs, check or bank charges, and the frustration of dealing with paper bills, such as keeping records of numerous bills. Throughout this specification, "billed party" will be used to refer to any entity, such as a consumer or business, that makes bill payments to one or more billing parties. A typical billed party could be a person who owes a lump sum or monthly payments for a stereo system bought from a merchant, but could also be a small or larger business that buys on account. "Billing party" will be used to refer to an entity, such as a merchant, that bills a billed party or a processor that processes payments for billing parties.
Billing parties may use processing operations, often out-sourcing the work to bill and payment processing centers, to deal with large numbers of bills and check payments. Billing parties prepare bill statement information and then send that information to a processing center. The bill statement information is commonly prepared by the billing parties electronically as bill printing files on computer systems and then electronically sent via a Local Area Network (LAN), Wide Area Network (WAN), or direct dial connection to a processing center. The processing center prints the paper bills, integrating the bill print files with standard bill formats or forms to produce a printed paper bill. The processing center mails paper bills to consumers and receives the payments from those consumers. Processing of the payments is the next common step for processing centers. It involves opening the payment envelopes, preparing payment checks for deposit, and sending deposits to banks. The processing centers also record consumer payments; these records of consumer payments are then communicated to the billing parties as the basis for the next billing cycle and various market research purposes.
OCR (Optical Character Recognition) payment stubs are often included with each bill sent to a consumer. These OCR payment stubs, if mailed by the consumer with a payment check, allow the processing center to process payments more readily by electronically reading billing information into computers. The use of these OCR payment stubs simplifies processing, but problems result when consumers do not pay the entire amount due on the payment stub, the payment stub becomes not computer-readable, or the consumer does not mail the payment stub with the payment. Even when functioning smoothly, this processing system requires large amounts of time and money to process paper bills, checks, and stubs.
Electronic bill payment systems have been developed that reduce the reliance on paper bills and checks. Some electronic bill payment systems allow consumers with personal computers to pay bills without writing paper checks and/or without receiving paper bills. Some model electronic billing systems, such as MSFDC's Electronic Bill Presentment and Payment (EBPP) system and CheckFree's E-Bill system, utilize Internet technology and the World Wide Web (WWW) to bill consumers.
The Internet is a collection of computer networks that allows computer users to share files and other computer resources. The collection of networks linked together using files written in Hypertext Mark-up Language (HTML) is known as the WWW. Computer users can view information available on computers or networks on the WWW through the use of browsing software (such as Netscape Navigator, Microsoft Internet Explorer, or Mosaic browsers). A computer functioning as a server on the Internet operates a web site, which supports files in the form of documents and pages. When a user's browser requests information from the web site, the user receives a web page, which is a document formatted according to HTML.
Model electronic billing systems, such as those referenced above, use centralized payment processing centers and the Internet. The centralized payment processing center is developed as a web site on the WWW. Billing parties send electronic bill print files via a communications interface to these centralized payment processing centers, and the bill statements are stored on the web site. The centralized payment processing centers prepare the bills to be accessible over the Internet on the web site. The consumer can then access and manipulate his/her bills on the WWW on-line. When the consumer requests a bill, a template is used by the web site to build an HTML presentation of the bill, which is presented as a web page to the consumer.
In some electronic payment systems, the electronic bill print file is used to create a relational database for HTML presentation of the bill. In these systems, when the centralized processing centers prepare bills from the electronic bill print files received from the billing parties, a relational database of the information is created. Information from the electronic bill print files is removed and placed in this relational database. The creation of relational databases requires an understanding of every element from the electronic bill print files so that the HTML presentation of a bill is successful. In other electronic payment systems, rather than using electronic bill print files, the billing party legacy system must create a separate relational database for HTML presentation.
Security measures, such as passwords, control access to the bill statements stored in the centralized payment processing centers on the WWW. The consumer typically must send payment authorization for a bank account, credit card, or debit card to pay bills electronically. The consumer sets up payment authorization by filling out information on the web page, such as a checking account or credit card number and authorization for payment or charge, and by transmitting this information over the WWW.
Delivery of electronic bill statements from billing parties and electronic payment authorizations from consumers could be accomplished using conventional electronic mail (e-mail). However, conventional e-mail is not commonly used for delivery of bill statements and payment information, because it often results in problems. Standard Internet e-mail uses Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP). SMTP sends e-mail on the Internet and stores it in a number of different e-mail servers, which may use different operating platforms. E-mail using SMTP is sometimes inaccurate or does not reach the intended receiver. For this reason, the use of SMTP e-mail may be problematic for the delivery of data for electronic bill payment systems.
When bills are presented to or payments provided by consumers using standard Internet browsers over the WWW, private data (such as names associated with social security numbers, bank account numbers, and credit card numbers) may be stored on the web site. The storage and transmission of private billing information on the Internet creates two potential problems: security and privacy. This information can become the target of computer hackers, and consumers and billing parties are concerned about security for monetary transactions on the Internet. The storage of private information on the Internet also allows billing parties or computer hackers to ascertain a consumer's payment habits, behaviors, and preferences. Consumers are concerned about this kind of information use (and misuse).
Another problem with existing electronic payment systems using the WWW is the form of the bill. If the billing statement is to have all of the same graphical elements as the paper bill to which the consumer is accustomed and all the credit or other legal disclosures that may be required, this adversely affects the length of time required to provide the electronic bill on the consumer's computer screen over the Internet. In order to access information from the WWW using a browser, the entire image must be downloaded from the Internet server to the consumer's computer and then processed by the browser before the consumer can fully see and access it. A consumer may become impatient waiting for a graphics-oriented web page to appear on his/her computer screen. Information delivery on the Internet can be frustrating, because it is much slower than delivery of data from the consumer's computer hard drive.
Slow information delivery over the Internet not only frustrates consumers, but it also causes electronic payment system providers to produce electronic bills that can be delivered more quickly to the consumers' computers. These electronic bills may lack graphic image elements that enhance readability and may follow standard web page format. This standard format also causes electronic bills to look very different from the standard paper bills to which the consumer is accustomed. Billing parties may also lose the logos and layout designs that make their bills recognizable and distinguishable from other bills.
In the model electronic payment system, centralized payment processors replace existing paper payment processing centers. The billing parties, therefore, send their bill statement information to the centralized payment processing centers instead of to their traditional, mail-based payment processing centers. The traditional paper processing centers are left with only that portion of the billing that continues to be done by paper.
There is a need for an electronic bill payment system and method that is easy to use, fast, secure, private, and that fits well with existing processing centers and electronic billing formats. The system should replace the use of existing paper bills and checks to reduce the printing, processing, and postage costs of paper billing. The system should be able to send and receive billing and payment information over the Internet or phone lines with little exposure to security or privacy risks. The system should also be simple for consumers to use and should allow the consumer to view bill information on a computer in an understandable format. Finally, the system should allow consumers to quickly down-load and view bills on their computers without long delays in receiving bills from on-line resources.